Came a Story
by EstelRaca
Summary: Once upon a time, a story was born that thought it was a man... One-shot, Drosslemeyer


**Disclaimer: **Princess Tutu is definitely not mine, though I do love it muchly. Many thanks to the original creators for providing us the sandbox we play in.

_Came a Story_

Once upon a time, a story was born that thought it was a man.

He wasn't born to peasants, though he would sometimes claim he had been. No, Diederick Drosslemeyer was born to the middle-class, the son of a hard-working baker and his pretty wife. He was much loved by his father and mother, and so it was many years before they realized that he wasn't quite… right.

Diederick always loved stories. Even before he could talk he would listen avidly whenever someone was telling tales—and if he was a tad too avid, well, he was just being a precocious child. He made friends easily, quickly, gathering a small group around himself anytime he went out to play.

It was never hard to find the children later. All the adults had to do was listen for the shouts of victory and frustration as Diederick led his merry band in search of danger and magic, betrayal and rescue, daring and darkness.

"Such a smart boy," some said approvingly.

"Such an imaginative lad," others grumbled.

"Born to be a bard," his mother sighed. "Born a bit too late in history, I'm afraid."

The boy was happy, though, and the children he directed madly in love with the stories he wove, so they were left alone. Perhaps he would have contented himself with merely telling tales if not for the incident with poor Eva.

Diederick was eleven, nearing twelve, a fine young man who should have outgrown the play-acting of children. If he had any hesitation, any doubts as those his own age were replaced by their younger siblings, he didn't allow it to show. His tales simply became even more daring, his heroes more dashing, his villains more monstrous. All might still have been well if he hadn't ordered the child up the tree… or if she hadn't gone, hadn't been blinded by the magic and the moment of importance.

Climb she did, though, and fall she did. There wasn't the silence needed to hear the crack as neck and head struck ground, not with seven children screaming, but her pose gave the truth away. The story had ended in tragedy, the princess falling from her perch as she sought to escape the fearsome dragon, never knowing that her prince had already slain the beast.

Diederick began to laugh, a full, beautiful sound as the other children's cries quieted to whimpers and sobs. One arm snaked out and grasped the Prince as he sought to escape.

"Go to your Princess and bid her fair night."

The Prince didn't go to her, and the child didn't scream, as would have been proper. He was barely breathing through his tears, the useless thing. A desperate jerk saw him freed, running toward his mother and the safety of reality.

Diederick laughed again, a bit uncertainly as he watched the others scatter.

It would be some months and many nights of crying, even truly mourning, before he laughed again.

The others remembered, you see. They remembered far too clearly that Diederick didn't come back, and knew as only the young can that the story would continue to wind about them no matter what happened. Fear gripped them. Their parents begged them be kind to the boy, who truly hadn't meant any harm… but since when did the cozening of the old affect the hierarchy of the young?

For the first time in his young life, Diederick was alone, the stories he wished to tell trapped within his mind. Seeing the hurt, seeing the forlorn glaze in their son's eyes, his parents sought a way to mend the damage.

Writing was still a privilege, paper something precious, ink as dear or more than blood. They could afford a bit, though, just a bit, if it would make their child smile again.

Smile he did when they told him what he was to do. Diederick knew of books, had read all that the village held, but he would never have dreamed he would be allowed to write his own. To place something of his design, something of his mind, in those dark letters, and make them last forever… yes. He could believe it was what he had always wanted.

His first attempt at a story was clumsy, an apology of sorts to poor Eva. With even strokes of his hand, creating block letters that seemed to hold the weight of the universe, Diederick gave her back the life he had stolen. Gave her the gown of a princess and riches to match, a small puppy like the one she had always played with in the street, a doll such as he had always heard girls liked.

Gave her back to her parents, a vision in silk and fur and all the other fine things the noblemen who rode through would know.

(_And what was that poking out of the back of her hair? A worm, perhaps? Or a bit of bone? For he was never meant to write peace…_)

Eva's parents woke the town with their cries. He hadn't expected there to be movement on the street, his father at his door, and the ink-bottle spilled, dripping across the words he had been working so meticulously on. Diederick's cry of grief was genuine as he hurriedly set the bottle upright and attempted to salvage as much of the precious fluid as he could.

It took less than a day for the story to run through town. The strangest thieves they were, and the cruelest, to steal a child from her final rest, dress her in fine clothes, and lead her to her parents' house. Everyone had a theory about what had happened and why, but only Diederick knew the truth. Only he knew that what he written had become truth… and what he had erased, in a start of fear and excitement, had been erased.

He didn't write for almost a month after that, not out of fear but out of uncertainty. Did it always happen? If it did, what should he write?

(_Could he write aught but a story, the stories pounding in his veins, searching for life?_)

Eventually the call became too much for him, though, and he took up pen and paper again. He was careful to keep those he was close to from touching the stories, careful to set them far away in place or in time from everything he wanted to hold dear.

It truly wasn't his fault, the fire.

Truly.

He'd only wanted to write a tale. He'd only wanted to send the hero into danger, the brave man after his princess. He hadn't meant the man to resemble anyone, in thought or in looks. He certainly hadn't meant to make the hero his own father.

And once the town was burning, well, there was only one thing to do. Finish the story as it had to be finished. Write the Prince collecting the Princess in his arms. Write the anguish in her face as she calls after their pet (_their son_). Write the warmth and the roar and the beauty of destruction as hope flares, fades, dissipates as man and woman huddle together, alone against the world. Write them as they kiss, and he turns her face away and closes his own eyes as the heat becomes overwhelming…

Write the end of the world, and watch as it goes up in firefly sparks.

He both laughed and cried as he finished that story, because it was beautiful and perfect and thematically sound, and because he was more alone than he ever wanted to be.

There are many things that a decent-looking young man can do when he can write the world to suit his desires, though. By the time he was seventeen, Diederick had already written a chance meeting with nobility that ended in a stable home and a willing audience for his tales.

He was a bard, but a bard for the new world, and he was quite happy again. His sponsor paid well for his work, and seemed pleased even with the darkest of his tales. His own story was a mystery still, but he preferred it that way, encouraging the speculation and uncertainty, only keeping his name true.

(_He feared what would become of him, were he to sign a false name on one of his manuscripts._)

Safety is boring, though, and so not meant to last. Before two years were fully gone his sponsor discovered the truth of his writing.

"A simple tale, Die." The man was not much older than Diederick himself. "Just something to help me along."

"I don't just write events. I write _stories_. If you truly want me to write of you, I will, but remember that." He spoke calmly, almost jokingly, but Diederick, for the first time in his life, was terrified.

"I know, I know, your precious art, your precious meaning. So give me some meaning. And have it mean that my brother loses the better part of the inheritance. All right, Die?"

Diederick nodded, and with the request accepted the terror faded. He gave warning. Now all there was to do was write, and he had become very, very skilled at that.

It was not the last time he talked to his sponsor, to his friend, but it was the last time he cared. The man was not a man anymore. He had purposefully made himself a character, a pawn, a puppet, and he had demanded Diederick play the strings.

He gave him a beautiful story, a wonderful story of love and honor and salvation. He even gave him a fast death, a good death, fighting his brother for the honor of their father and knowing that his sacrifice had not been in vain. The story finished, he applied to another of the nobles in his acquaintance for sponsorship, and was gladly accepted.

And so his story went, for year upon year, until finally those who would use him came to fear his power. There was only one puppet-master in the land, and since he was not one of them, he was not fit to live.

They seized him early in the morning, which was a travesty in and of itself. Something such as betrayal should be done at night, by the light of the full moon, with covered faces and clouded souls. They shouldn't have come to watch, standing proud and serene, not a single one turning away even when he called their name.

They should have had him executed, a public event, so he might have had his say and been allowed to denounce him.

They should have come to see him, so that he might prick at least one conscience, as every prisoner must be permitted to do.

If they insisted on taking his hands, his precious _hands_, they should at least have gotten a man who knew what he was doing. It should have been clean. It _would_ have been clean, had he written it. A large man, a single swipe, and the job would have been done. The axe itself would have been hot, making the sword they used to cauterize the injuries superfluous.

Messy. The whole affair was messy, and wrong, and pointless. There was no story. There was no hero, no villain, no lesson. All that he was balked at what had occurred.

He was already feverish when they threw him out on the streets, but he had been healthy, and even if the strength of youth had faded he was stronger still in his condemnation (_more of _how _than of _what _they had done_). He looked a fearful madman, he knew, and there was truly no way for him to fix that. Not yet.

The town wall was close to where he was turned out, long and tall and unmarred. His blood where it oozed through the cauterizations was almost black, thick and viscous, a perfect substitute for ink. More powerful even than ink, for it contained all that he was, and he… he contained all that was in a million stories.

A million stories he _would_ tell. A million tales he _would_ weave, damn all who would call him monster. It wasn't his fault the tales were so dark, nor his fault they listened avidly 'til they were in them.

He wrote for hours, perhaps for days, for there was no need for light with what he was doing. He had one final tale to pen, one final tale that would dwarf all of them, even the unfinished one of the Prince and the Raven that they had no doubt already confiscated from his room. A tale of himself, of the Writer that would always be, the Creator that would not be silenced.

He wrote, and he bled, and the most important story he would ever craft took shape.

The man eventually died screaming, pale and aching.

The story lived… and laughed.


End file.
